On Thursday, August 29th Kvarken Space Center got the pleasure of hosting members of KPMG’s Tech and Data Law team, led by their team leader Jannica Boucht. KPMG is a global network of professional service firms providing audit, assurance, tax, legal and advisory services. Kvarken Space Center’s specialists had prepared a set of presentations focusing on space, KSC’s activities and environmental reporting for the visitors eager to hear all things related to space.
Project Manager Johanna Haveri opened with an overview of Kvarken Space Center, the AuroraSpace project that aims to create and support space businesses and foster accessible space education in the Aurora Interreg area, and how satellites offer lots of different information for us. Haveri emphasized that space technology isn’t just rocket science, but a part of our everyday lives. How often do you make phone calls, check out tomorrow’s weather, use bank card to pay and use navigation apps? Quite often probably, and these are made possible by satellites.
Laboratory Engineer Jaakko Yliaho told about the KvarkenSat, University of Vaasa’s and collaborating partners’ small satellite planned to be launched to Low Earth Orbit at altitude of 500 km to scan Kvarken region in the near future. He explained how KvarkenSat will have a freely accessible data to anyone interested in it, and even though the imagery it captures won’t be as precise as the commercial satellites that can even see what’s written in the license plates of the cars, it will still gather valuable location data and have two Finnish technology demonstrations.
Associate Professor Mikko Ranta discussed about his research focusing on AI, big data, and satellite data. As Principal Investigator of the Harmonizing Profit and Planet project, he aims to redefine environmental accounting to address the environmental crisis by integrating sustainability and economic decision-making in industries.
“Better environmental situation awareness leads to more responsible business practices”, tells Ranta. He also informs how satellite data technologies can give added value to the companies’ sustainability (ESG) reports.
Programmer and doctoral researcher Cem Özcan offered his insights and examples on how remote sensing applications can be differently used to gather valuable information. Özcan told that for example, EU’s Copernicus program can be used to access satellite data for free and such data can be valuable for environmental reports. Remote sensing offers a lot of information for its analysts, and as previously mentioned, with commercial satellites’ high-resolution imagery, a lot can be seen on a clear day.
“Nothing is stopping me checking industries or even people’s backyards”, says Özcan referring to the current space law regulations.
Related to the topic, Project Manager Shakila Bu-Pasha’s research was mentioned, as it explores the regulation of satellite data within space law to ensure data protection and security.
Thank you for the interesting discussions and visiting us KPMG Finland’s Tech and Data Law Team!